The Weeley Festival
Clacton
On Sea
Essex August
27th-29th 1971
Weeley,
though apparently attracting a very large crowd, (estimated to be
110,000 ), is one of those festivals that just seems to have been
ignored by the rock media. However, due to the kindness of the folks
listed at the bottom of the page, we can now find out just who played
and when. You can find out why the festival was held and some of the
wilder goings on as related by the underground press.
Thanks
to
Brian Nugent, we have more or less the complete program on-line and now
all we need is the straight press reports of how good the various bands
actually were on the day and some more of your own ravings about how
much you enjoyed yourselves staying up the two days and nights that the
festival took place, as it was continuous , starting at midnight on the
Friday and finishing at 5 am on Sunday !.
Rory
spent
the early months of this year laying the foundations for a new band to
continue where Taste left off. With fellow Irishmen, Wilgar Campbell on
drums and Gerry McAvoy on bass, backing Rory, he made his first album
in February and March at Advision studios. With Vincent Crane of Atomic
Rooster playing piano on a couple of tracks, the album, simply entitled
"Rory Gallagher" gives a wider picture of his talents than previously.
Taste's
asset was its ability to generate an enormous physical excitement,- to
which the new album adds depth and subtlety. Taste made two albums,
called "Taste" and "On The Boards" the title being a reminder that
Taste had built up their huge following entirely on the strength of
their volcanic live appearances and shortly after the band finally
broke up, "Live Taste," recorded at Montreux, was released and made the
charts.
Rory
is
happy. A trip to America is in the air, probably late this year. the
last time he went it was with Taste, who found themselves playing only
to vast stadium crowds as part of the Blind Faith tour. This time he
wants to get to more of the smaller clubs. He has changed since Taste,
Rory says, "With a new line-up and a new bunch of songs certainly, but
for better or worse I'm still recognisable. As far as style goes, I
don't like playing twelve-bars all the time. The blues field goes right
from Charlie Patton to Lowell Fulson, and my aim is to play the blues
well and feel them."
Many
thanks to gwsharkfrom Australia
for
granting permission to use the Rory related portion of his archive on
the Weeley Festival.
See http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/ebony/546/weeley-rory-on.html.
This page is part of a
large archive on festivals in the UK from
1965-1985. see http://users.bigpond.net.au/the-archive/ Check out this site for some
great photos and lots of information on the Festival, including fan
memories. Some
notes I compiled. This
was
originally to be a small, free festival that kept growing and growing.
Scouting around the web for information on this event, I found
that it must have been a pretty crazy scene. Squabbles between
Mark Bolan of T-Rex and Faces over who would be the headliner. Battles
between the Hell's Angels and a security force composed of caterer's
workers. Reportedly, the Angels got the worst of it (one died) and
later in the week, 67 of their members ended up in court.
The
lineup
included The Faces, Rory Gallagher, The Groundhogs, The Grease Band,
Quintessance, Colosseum, Edgar Broughton Band, Juicy Lucy, Arthur
Brown, Mungo Jerry, Al Stewart, Argent, Barclay James Harvest, Assagai,
Bell & Arc, Dave Edmunds, Caravan, Demon Fuzz, Fairfield Parlour,
Formerly Fat Harry, Fusion Orchestra, Gnidrolog, Gringo, Hackenshack,
Heads Hands and Feet, Jerry Lochran, Lindisfarne, Natural Acoustic
Band, On, Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, Ricotti Alberquerque, Stray,
Tir Na Nog, Steve Tilson, The Third Ear Band and Van Der Graaf Generator I
found
various accounts from fans on the show. Some of the big name acts were
trashed, but Rory got only favorable mentions here and there. A couple
of
samples taken from the Archives pages "To me
the music was all good, only some was better than the other. Main
revelation must have been Rory Gallagher. After the festival we all
went to the local `Army & Navy `stores and bought checked
lumberjack shirts!"
"Rory
Gallagher blew a set that was an example to some of the lesser heavy
groups in how to mix volume and sledge hammer techniques with tone and
musicianship. The audience loved them, but maybe for the wrong reason
in that their brasher parts are far more numerous and obvious. But the
audience, and tired, cold people back-stage, needed a release from King
Crimson's classical rock. Their boogey-roogie earned them an encore
when encores are completely out with the time schedules hours behind."
"Didn't
Rory Gallagher (the
main reason we came to the festival) do a solo acoustic slot for a
group that never turned up ? , he was , as usual, par excellence "
The
show
started at midnight on Friday night and never stopped. Rory's set ran
from 5 in the morning until 7 AM!! Imagine not only playing at
that time, after a long night, but drawing
an encore to top it off! Another quote taken from the Archives....... "Rory
Gallagher (who
woke me from deep slumber with his opening riff from "Laundromat")"
Finally, I found a rough
BBC clip of the festival on the BBC site. A narrator tells the story of
the growth of the festival from a modest local, one day show expecting
3000-4000 people to a mega-show that drew between 100000-150000 fans.
Go to Inside Out (click), then click on"
Watch extra
behind the scenes footage of Weeley". It's a 3 minute clip that
will play on Real Player etc. (Sorry, the background music isn't R.G.,
it's Faces and Mungo Jerry)
In
an odd coincidence, Rory was
followed onstage by a band called "ON". (Rory
& ON....catchy name) Thanks
again to
GWSHARK for allowing me to use the material on his page!!!! reformatted
by roryfan
